Finally, a launch date of March 27, 1972, was set for Funky. I remember coming home from school the day that the sales campaign started, lying down on the bed in our apartment, and realizing that there wasn’t anything more I could do. Funky’s fate was in the hands of others. The syndicate sales – men are the unsung warriors of the comics business. Without their efforts, there wouldn’t be an American comics page, let alone a reason to be doing this book.
As it turned out, Funky’s fate was in some excellent hands. Bob Coles was the head of sales for Publisher’s-Hall, and his staff of Dick Lafave, Don Lane, Fred Dingman, and Bill McGhee helped Funky launch in more than seventy papers nationwide. Later, the ball would be moved further down the field by the addition to the sales staff of four former teachers: John Killian, Jack Prahl, George Haeberlein, and Bill Weir. Having just left the teaching trenches, these men got Funky, and that knowledge translated into a rapidly growing client list. Now the ball was handed back to me. The salesmen were getting Funky into papers across the country, but I had to keep it there.
*From the introduction to The Complete Funky Winkerbean Vol. One
